Sure, any site can theoretically be cracked and used to distribute crap like that. The thing is, many sites are well-run enough that the odds of that are relatively miniscule.
If you don't trust anything, you may as well cut the cable, remove your network card and disable any removable media.
If you want to use the Internet, at some point you're going to have to trust someone.
Hell, I ignore any study of the Internet that involves humans. Half of the researchers don't understand it, half already wrote their conclusion, and half are so out-of-date that they're still bracing for Y2K.
I'm not saying free-to-play is right for everything, but it's currently a "next big thing" to many game devs. A lot of them are wary, but they see profit margins that are simply obscene by regular standards. I read an article (can't find it ATM) that compared costs for World of Warcraft and Farmville. The dinky little Facebook game made more money, with an order of magnitude more users, an order of magnitude less dev time, and minuscule hardware overhead.
The artists, musicians and game designers may not like it, but the producers and shareholders do, so a lot of people are "looking into it".
I actually recommend giving them a listen. Death Magnetic is sort-of like the Black Album, with the more melodic elements, but it has a lot of the thrash back from the classic days. It's not their best, but it's their best in over a decade. It does have some problems: the songs go on a bit too long, and some of the tracks are a bit weak, but overall worth trying at least one song.
S&M is actually one of my favorite albums of all time. Give "No Leaf Clover" a listen. Or the S&M version of "Battery", if you like the old thrash stuff better. Then go on BitTorrent and grab the whole thing.
What? Just because I'm a fan of the music doesn't mean I have to support the corrupt, mildly-evil system that produced it.
Hey, S&M was a great experiment (they actually played a "The Memory Remains" that was good), and Death Magnetic was actually as good as "...and Justice for All". Signs are that they've made a comeback. They even apologized for being douchebags with the Napster thing.
The "substitution rate" is probably the worst figure in all these papers, mainly because it is far from constant. Perhaps, with enough study, you could find the substitution rate for one specific product in one region, but trying to get a national average by product category is ludicrous.
Since people like blaming Metallica, I'll use them as an example. Note that all these numbers were pulled out of my ass, same as all numbers.
You may get a substitution rate of 50% for Master of Puppets in Southwestern US. You may get a 2% substitution rate for St. Anger in Finland. You may get a 20% substitution rate for "S&M", and you'd be lucky to get a 1% rate for "Acoustic Metal". That's a massive change just for one band. How would you compare the rates between The Black Mages and Justin Bieber? Trying to lump target audiences like that will give you numbers about as meaningful as the ones I just made up.
Listen up, MAFIAA. We care about three things: quality, price, and usability. We will pay for the good stuff, and tell you where to shove your crap. We don't want to pay 30$ for a music album, $20 for movie tickets, or $70 for a game. Finally, we want to get stuff easily, that works with everything, and doesn't come with legal crap that shouldn't have a chance of standing up in court.
And if you can't give us those three things, you need a new economic model. How many bands are giving out the music for free and making money from concerts and merchandise? It's nearly impossible to pirate a t-shirt or an experience. How much money are "free-to-play" games making?
Stop trying to legislate a profit, and start spending as much on those three things as you do on legal fees. Maybe you'll actually make money by, *gasp*, making a desirable product.
A non-trivial problem, especially for new programmers. You'd practically have to write a full parser to do it properly. Just take the case of an equals sign. If you just blindly add random spaces to either end, you'd break things like == and =+. Even intelligently removing spaces could break things like "= ++i". About the only trivial part would be parentheses and brackets.
Then again, I could write such a program and sell it to college students...
Most people have subtle spacing differences. Compare:
for (int i = 1; for(int i=1; for (int i=1; for (int i = 1 ; et cetera.
And when you start c/p-ing code, most students don't change it to be consistent, and rarely keep it consistent between projects. When writing from scratch, though, people usually do stay consistent with spacing.
The thing is, much of the time you don't need to write a custom shader. Usually, you just want the same processing done that's been done for ages.
The argument is more akin to "why do I have to do a bunch of syscalls to set white text, black background, for my Hello World, instead of just letting the default of white text, black background be loaded automatically?"
Especially since quite a bit of legacy hardware doesn't support shaders period!
Pretty sure that's sarcasm, since it would be a couple dozen lines with the deprecated stuff.
I don't get why the ARB does half the stuff it does. Why can't we have a default shader that does all the basic stuff we've been depending on for years?
Obviously, software patents should be illegal. And patents get seriously abused, with patents on really trivial things.
Some patents, though, I can agree with. If I invented a new rocket engine, one significantly different from any existing one, I would like to make money off of it.
Realistically, patents should be restricted, not banned. There should really only be a few hundred patents a year, not thousands. Get some educated specialists to work for them, reform the system to only allow truly innovative patents, and keep out bullshit like software and "process" patents.
Write open-source software that works with hardware or closed-source software you already sell. Build applications that run on Oracle databases. Sure, people will port them to run on other DBs, but you'll still get sales of your DB. Same for hardware.
I've used the system he hacked into, Blackboard. It seriously sucks, has security holes a blind lemur could exploit, and is so hard-to-use many of the teachers refused to use it (at a tech school!). If the school kept using it, they deserved someone hacking it.
For the past few years, all my video splicing has been done with the mediocre editor built into Blender. Which works well enough for a feature built into a 3D modeling/rendering program, but is far less usable and efficient than any dedicated one.
Seriously, maybe the forum keeps IP on file. A big maybe, just for an IP address. Real name and other info has about as much chance of being stored as Steve Ballmer switching to Slackware.
So go ahead, Mr. Forum guy. Send the judge everything you have. It'll identify them about as well as what they already have.
Considering that null function pointer bugs are a dime a dozen on any system, finding one of those is easy. TFA also points out that the mmap protection code in Linux has been historically weak, although there don't seem to be any open bugs at the moment.
So the article could have been better titled as "Why null function pointer bugs are serious business", but "How to exploit null [function] pointers" is still pretty accurate.
I have three passwords, shared between almost everything. One is a low-security one, used for stuff like usenet lists and forums. I'm not worried about anyone knowing it, because it doesn't access anything remotely important. It's even set up as a decoy password on my discreet drive. There's a nearly blank account, using my standard username and lowest password. The.login includes the line "rm -rf/home". Never actually tested it, though.
Second is a medium-security one, covers my system logins and email. Both have more than 5 alpha chars, both cases, and at least one symbol and/or number.
The top-security one covers my most important stuff, root logins and banking. Three numbers, three symbols, fourteen alpha of varying cases. The only way I remember it is a complex mnemonic referencing Jules Verne, Douglas Adams, the qwerty keyboard layout and hexadecimal.
Never had problems with hacking. Actually, the biggest problem I had was a bank that didn't accept my maximum password. It only accepted alphanumerics, max 16 chars. Needless to say, I was not impressed.
Slashdot Mirror
History will decide what is important. We need to focus on the future. I'd rather leave my great-great-grandkids a moonbase than a shuttle.
I'd worry more about the country lasting that long. It's not really in immediate danger, but hell, we've only been a country for 230 years.
They'd also be distributing the Linux ports of id and Epic games. A bunch of indie games, too.
Sure, any site can theoretically be cracked and used to distribute crap like that. The thing is, many sites are well-run enough that the odds of that are relatively miniscule.
If you don't trust anything, you may as well cut the cable, remove your network card and disable any removable media.
If you want to use the Internet, at some point you're going to have to trust someone.
We need orbital enforcement. Nobody would dare break the speed limit if it meant getting hit by an orbiting gigawatt laser! Mwahahahahahaha!
Old busted CRT monitor? Toss out the innards, use it as a stylish bookshelf.
Box of PCI slot covers? Bookmarks. Busted PC speaker? Rip out the electronics, flip it upside down, use it as a coin bank.
I do this all the time. You'd be surprised what you can do.
Legally speaking, you're right. That doesn't mean it's the right thing.
Besides, how much money can you really make off of YouTube videos? Not much, I'd wager, for variations on one movie.
Hell, I ignore any study of the Internet that involves humans. Half of the researchers don't understand it, half already wrote their conclusion, and half are so out-of-date that they're still bracing for Y2K.
I'm not saying free-to-play is right for everything, but it's currently a "next big thing" to many game devs. A lot of them are wary, but they see profit margins that are simply obscene by regular standards. I read an article (can't find it ATM) that compared costs for World of Warcraft and Farmville. The dinky little Facebook game made more money, with an order of magnitude more users, an order of magnitude less dev time, and minuscule hardware overhead.
The artists, musicians and game designers may not like it, but the producers and shareholders do, so a lot of people are "looking into it".
I actually recommend giving them a listen. Death Magnetic is sort-of like the Black Album, with the more melodic elements, but it has a lot of the thrash back from the classic days. It's not their best, but it's their best in over a decade. It does have some problems: the songs go on a bit too long, and some of the tracks are a bit weak, but overall worth trying at least one song.
S&M is actually one of my favorite albums of all time. Give "No Leaf Clover" a listen. Or the S&M version of "Battery", if you like the old thrash stuff better. Then go on BitTorrent and grab the whole thing.
What? Just because I'm a fan of the music doesn't mean I have to support the corrupt, mildly-evil system that produced it.
Hey, S&M was a great experiment (they actually played a "The Memory Remains" that was good), and Death Magnetic was actually as good as "...and Justice for All". Signs are that they've made a comeback. They even apologized for being douchebags with the Napster thing.
The "substitution rate" is probably the worst figure in all these papers, mainly because it is far from constant. Perhaps, with enough study, you could find the substitution rate for one specific product in one region, but trying to get a national average by product category is ludicrous.
Since people like blaming Metallica, I'll use them as an example. Note that all these numbers were pulled out of my ass, same as all numbers.
You may get a substitution rate of 50% for Master of Puppets in Southwestern US. You may get a 2% substitution rate for St. Anger in Finland. You may get a 20% substitution rate for "S&M", and you'd be lucky to get a 1% rate for "Acoustic Metal". That's a massive change just for one band. How would you compare the rates between The Black Mages and Justin Bieber? Trying to lump target audiences like that will give you numbers about as meaningful as the ones I just made up.
Listen up, MAFIAA. We care about three things: quality, price, and usability. We will pay for the good stuff, and tell you where to shove your crap. We don't want to pay 30$ for a music album, $20 for movie tickets, or $70 for a game. Finally, we want to get stuff easily, that works with everything, and doesn't come with legal crap that shouldn't have a chance of standing up in court.
And if you can't give us those three things, you need a new economic model. How many bands are giving out the music for free and making money from concerts and merchandise? It's nearly impossible to pirate a t-shirt or an experience. How much money are "free-to-play" games making?
Stop trying to legislate a profit, and start spending as much on those three things as you do on legal fees. Maybe you'll actually make money by, *gasp*, making a desirable product.
Is he being paranoid, or not being paranoid enough?
A non-trivial problem, especially for new programmers. You'd practically have to write a full parser to do it properly. Just take the case of an equals sign. If you just blindly add random spaces to either end, you'd break things like == and =+. Even intelligently removing spaces could break things like "= ++i". About the only trivial part would be parentheses and brackets.
Then again, I could write such a program and sell it to college students...
Most people have subtle spacing differences. Compare:
for (int i = 1;
for(int i=1;
for (int i=1;
for (int i = 1 ;
et cetera.
And when you start c/p-ing code, most students don't change it to be consistent, and rarely keep it consistent between projects. When writing from scratch, though, people usually do stay consistent with spacing.
The thing is, much of the time you don't need to write a custom shader. Usually, you just want the same processing done that's been done for ages.
The argument is more akin to "why do I have to do a bunch of syscalls to set white text, black background, for my Hello World, instead of just letting the default of white text, black background be loaded automatically?"
Especially since quite a bit of legacy hardware doesn't support shaders period!
Pretty sure that's sarcasm, since it would be a couple dozen lines with the deprecated stuff.
I don't get why the ARB does half the stuff it does. Why can't we have a default shader that does all the basic stuff we've been depending on for years?
Obviously, software patents should be illegal. And patents get seriously abused, with patents on really trivial things.
Some patents, though, I can agree with. If I invented a new rocket engine, one significantly different from any existing one, I would like to make money off of it.
Realistically, patents should be restricted, not banned. There should really only be a few hundred patents a year, not thousands. Get some educated specialists to work for them, reform the system to only allow truly innovative patents, and keep out bullshit like software and "process" patents.
Write open-source software that works with hardware or closed-source software you already sell. Build applications that run on Oracle databases. Sure, people will port them to run on other DBs, but you'll still get sales of your DB. Same for hardware.
I've used the system he hacked into, Blackboard. It seriously sucks, has security holes a blind lemur could exploit, and is so hard-to-use many of the teachers refused to use it (at a tech school!). If the school kept using it, they deserved someone hacking it.
For the past few years, all my video splicing has been done with the mediocre editor built into Blender. Which works well enough for a feature built into a 3D modeling/rendering program, but is far less usable and efficient than any dedicated one.
Seriously, maybe the forum keeps IP on file. A big maybe, just for an IP address. Real name and other info has about as much chance of being stored as Steve Ballmer switching to Slackware.
So go ahead, Mr. Forum guy. Send the judge everything you have. It'll identify them about as well as what they already have.
Considering that null function pointer bugs are a dime a dozen on any system, finding one of those is easy. TFA also points out that the mmap protection code in Linux has been historically weak, although there don't seem to be any open bugs at the moment.
So the article could have been better titled as "Why null function pointer bugs are serious business", but "How to exploit null [function] pointers" is still pretty accurate.
I have three passwords, shared between almost everything. One is a low-security one, used for stuff like usenet lists and forums. I'm not worried about anyone knowing it, because it doesn't access anything remotely important. It's even set up as a decoy password on my discreet drive. There's a nearly blank account, using my standard username and lowest password. The .login includes the line "rm -rf /home". Never actually tested it, though.
Second is a medium-security one, covers my system logins and email. Both have more than 5 alpha chars, both cases, and at least one symbol and/or number.
The top-security one covers my most important stuff, root logins and banking. Three numbers, three symbols, fourteen alpha of varying cases. The only way I remember it is a complex mnemonic referencing Jules Verne, Douglas Adams, the qwerty keyboard layout and hexadecimal.
Never had problems with hacking. Actually, the biggest problem I had was a bank that didn't accept my maximum password. It only accepted alphanumerics, max 16 chars. Needless to say, I was not impressed.
Not true. We also blame SCO, the MAFIAA and, lately, Apple.